“Twisted Rat” Susan Stump’s 1934 Chevy Drag Truck

Susan Stump’s 1934 Chevy Drag Truck

Most women seem to have a lil’ black dress in their wardrobe that they pull out for a night on the town or other special occasions. And while Susan Stump likely has a lil’ black dress of her own, diesel en- thusiasts like to see her in her lil’ black racer—the 1934 Chevy rat rod nicknamed the Twisted Rat. Seeing the flat black drag race machine blasting down the track with a trail of black smoke billow- ing from the stack makes most assume that it’s piloted by a guy—as the vast majority of trucks we see at events— but that assumption would be wrong. Not only does Susan Stump drive the rat rod, she does it better than the boys on a regular basis.

DIESEL LIFE

A pediatric dental assistant and mother of two, Stump is a serious drag racer and mixes it up on both 1/8-mile and 1/4-mile drag strips. She lives in Fleetwod, Pennsylvania, and is good friends with Doug Brarens a.k.a Mr. Metal Ratrods in Mt. Pocono, PA, who originally owned and built the Twisted Rat. Brarens put Stump behind the wheel of the rod in 2009 when he built a ’39 Chevy rat rod he would race while she raced the ’34. Stump drove the Twisted Rat with a 6.5L GM diesel until 2012 when it went under the knife with Brarens in a four week update that put a more powerful 5.9L 12-valve Cummins under the hood. After driving the truck for about five years, she purchased it from Brarens and continued to race it with great success while making it her own machine.

BUILT TO RACE

Brarens built the lightweight truck specifically for drag racing with a fabri- cated 2X3 tube chassis and customized S&W roll cage to keep the driver safe. The chassis and roll cage are now painted purple to give the truck unique accents and show a little girl power. Weighing in at barely 3,000-pounds (3,050 race ready with driver) the compact rat rod can get away with less power under the hood than the big trucks and still be fast on the track, making it consistent and reliable. The short wheelbase design uses a Ford 9- inch rear end that has been narrowed con- siderably and stuffed with diesel friendly 2.70 gears. To keep the rear end in place and to allow chassis tuning for various track conditions, a Jegs 4-link kit is em- ployed with some additional S&W custom parts. A pair of adjustable QA1 coil over shocks allow further fine tuning of ride height and shock valving to get the Twisted Rat off the line quickly.

“NOT ONLY DOES SUSAN STUMP DRIVE THE RAT ROD, SHE DOES IT BETTER THAN THE BOYS ON A REGULAR BASIS”

Up front, the ’34 Chevy rides on a Ford Pinto/Mustang II style suspension system known for its light weight. A manual rack and pinion unit is used to keep the rat rod pointed in the proper direction down the track. Tubular upper and lower control arms combine with a set of adjustable QA1 coil over shocks to allow suspension tuning. To put the power to the track, in the rear, the Twisted Rat relies on a mas- sive set of 33X18.5-15LT Hoosier Quick Time Pro drag slicks wrapped around 15X14-inch Centerline drag wheels: With that much tire combined with the light- weight truck, it hooks up great off the line. Typical of most drag racers, Stump runs skinnies up front—in her case—a set of 165/80R15 Nanking tires mounted on 15X3.5-inch Centerline wheels.

1934 STYLE

Sitting atop the custom chassis is a flat black 1934 Chevrolet cab with a highly modified bed out back. The bodywork was performed by time and then nature covered with $36 worth of Rustoleum flat black spray paint by Stump and her boyfriend Jeremiah Soga. The original Chevy grille shell was customized to integrate a custom RBP mesh grille insert with a purple R-Star logo. They also installed a pair of LED lights behind the lower portion of the grille to light the way during night races. The split- fold hood covers the Cummins 12-valve engine Brarens sourced from a ’91 pickup and crammed into the small chassis.

In the rear, the bed was chopped by six inches and shortened by a significant amount to mate to the short wheelbase chassis Brarens built. In true rat rod fashion, he fabricated the rear wheel wells from a 55-gallon drum. A two piece aluminum panel covers the bed for improved aerodynamics and to keep everything looking tidy. The forward section of the panel features fifteen large holes in a pyramid pattern to allow air to flow down into and through the transmission cooler and radiator mounted below the panel. The rear aluminum panel covers the battery, fuel cell, FASS pump/fil- ter system and coolant overflow tank all within quick and easy access by loosening six quarter turn fasteners and lifting off the panel.

CUMMINS POWER

While the Cummins engine is largely a stock 5.9L mill, with a stock crank swinging a set of stock rods and pistons through the stock bore and stroke, Brarens did give the engine some special attention. Fuel system upgrades start with the FASS 150 pump/filter system that sends plenty of filtered #2 fuel from the rear mounted fuel cell up to the VE pump that is upgraded with a 4K-gover- nor spring kit to allow the 12-valve to rev to higher RPM. The injection pump sends fuel into the en- gine through a set of 80 HP Industrial Injection fuel injectors.

TURBO WORK

On the air side of the engine, a single 58mm S300G BorgWarner Airwerks turbo charger is perched atop the wrapped exhaust manifold send- ing spent gasses through the turbine and out the wrapped downpipe. Then the burnt gasses are ex- pelled through a custom 5-inch stack behind the driver side of the cab that Brarens fabricated. To give the exhaust a unique touch, Stump had the stack powdercoated in bright purple by the crew at Polish This in Leesport, PA. Air is drawn in through the Airwerks compressor inlet then pressurized and handed off to an eBay intercooler Brarens installed in the grille shell in front of the engine. After leaving the intercooler, the com- pressed charge is channeled directly into the cylinder head through a custom intake he fabricated. Stump estimates the engine is making somewhere around 350 to 400 horsepower, and she runs the times on the track to more than back up that claim.

TRANSMISSION

The Cummins engine hands off the power to a Powerglide 2-speed racing transmission built by Transmission Spe- cialties in Mount Pocono, PA, through an Allison flexplate that was modified to link the Cummins to the Perfect Shift 11-inch torque converter. The converter has a 1,900 RPM stall speed to let the truck build power on the line before launching down the track. It channels the power to a NASA input shaft in the transmission. A B&M transmission cooler is located above the radiator in the rear of the truck to keep the temperatures in check. Stump selects gears through a Hurst Pistol Grip lockout shifter. The Powerglide transmission sends power to the Ford 9-inch through a Levan Machine custom driveshaft with 1,350 yokes for added strength.

STRICTLY BUSINESS

Moving inside the little Chevy, you’ll find that it is a sparse space best suited for racing with an S&W Racecars roll cage featuring a swing out door bar on the driver side. There is only one seat in the truck, a Jegs racing seat covered with a purple and black cover. Stump relies on a G-Force 5-point harness to keep her safe and secure in the seat during runs down the strip. Auto Meter Cobalt series gauges are used to keep an eye on the truck’s per- formance while a basic 12-inch steering wheel is used to keep it pointed in the right direction.

RACING SUCCESS

Stump has been highly successful be- hind the wheel of the Twisted Rat finishing the 2015 ODSS season in third place in the highly competitive 7.70/12.0-Index Class while also taking home several wins over the years. She also consistently runs among the top qualifiers and makes her way to the semi- and final rounds more often than not. Her best 1/4-mile pass has been 10.87-seconds at 126 MPH and showing amazing driving ability, she quali- fied first, second and first at the TS Outlaw drag race events for 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. Her 12.0-Index qualifying run for the 2015 TS event was about as close to perfect as can be with a 12.001-second run, only 1/1000 of a second away from perfect. Her favorite racing experience so far was qualifying for the NHRA Summer Nationals in Englishtown, New Jersey, and running on the track at the same event as the “big guys” like John Force who came to her pit area. She broke an input shaft in the final round but had fun nonetheless. If you see Stump and her ride in the pits, stop by to check it out; it’s a cool little rod. Seeing it up close reveals more than watching it streak by on the track. DW